The Secret Service last week placed a senior supervisor on leave and suspended his security clearance after finding corroborating evidence that he allegedly assaulted a female employee after hours at headquarters.
The allegations were first reported on April 2 to the Secret Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility, whose inspectors conducted “corroborating interviews” the same afternoon.
Director Joseph Clancy, following a Department of Homeland Security management directive, then ordered the Office of Professional Responsibility to contact the DHS inspector general to launch an investigation.
“The Secret Service is an agency that demands that our employees conduct themselves with the highest level of integrity,” Clancy said in a statement Wednesday night. “These allegations as reported are very disturbing. Any threats or violence that endangers our employees in the workplace is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
A law enforcement official familiar with the case confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the supervisor facing the allegations is Xavier Morales, a manager in the security clearance division.
According to an account in the Washington Post, which first reported the allegations of sexual harassment Wednesday night, a subordinate female employee in the security clearance division said Morales grabbed her on the night of March 31 after they returned to the office from a party at Capitol City Brewing Company.
Citing two law enforcement officials, the Post said Morales had told her at the party that he was in love with her and would like to have sex with her, then when the two returned to headquarters, Morales tried to kiss her and grabbed her arms when she resisted. The scuffle allegedly continued until Morales gave up.
The incident of alleged sexual harassment and assault is the second accusation of misconduct involving agency officials after attending a work-related social event. The party at the Capitol City Brewing Company was intended as a celebration of Morales’s new assignment as head of the Secret Service’s field office in Louisville, the Post reported.
On the night of March 4, two senior-level agents returned to the White House from a retirement party at a bar in Chinatown and disrupted an active bomb investigation while in their government vehicle allegedly after drinking.
Morales was president of the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association from 2013 to 2014, according to the organization’s website.
The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department are also investigating the incident, according to the Post.
